Self Driving Cars - Facts Versus Fiction

There are many tech products which actually exist in today's modern world that most people never imagined possible just a few decades ago. Prior to the millennium, devices such as smart phones and tablets seemed like things of the far future but now the majority of us can't bear to imagine life without them. Another technology, which at one point only seemed like something out of a science-fiction movie or an episode of The Jetsons, is the self-driving car. Believe it or not, there have been some major breakthroughs in the past few years which could lead to self-driving cars making their way on to our streets and highways. Of course there are plenty of rumors and speculations that surround the autonomous vehicle industry, leaving many people to wonder what exactly is fact and what is fiction. If you're curious about the development of autonomous vehicles, here are some of the facts about the industry and some common misconceptions too.

Myth: Self-driving Cars Are a New Invention
Contrary to popular belief, self-driving cars aren't a new invention at all. Innovative minds and engineers have been developing an autonomous vehicle for many decades. As a matter of fact, an article published in The Milwaukee Sentinel on December 8, 1926 warns citizens that “a 'phantom motor car' will haunt the streets of Milwaukee today.”1 The vehicle named in the article never actually came to fruition, but trials began taking place a few decades later. It wasn't until 1980's that truly autonomous cars were ever actually created. The names of the model vehicles produced by researchers and engineers at Carnegie Mellon University in 1984 were the Navlab and the ALV2. A few years later in 1987, Mercedes-Benz and Bundeswehr University in Muchich teamed up to create what is referred to as the “EUREKA Prometheus Project”3. Since then, a number of large car and truck companies have designated teams of engineers to develop a self-driving car that's safe enough for consumer use. Thanks to the rapid advancement of technology over the past couple of decades, self-driving cars are closer to becoming a reality more than ever before.

Fact: Self-driving Cars Can Be Made To Be More Energy Efficient
A great advantage of a self-driving car is that they have the possibility to consume less energy than the cars which are currently out on the streets. This is because the risk of deadly collisions is tremendously minimized with self-driving cars on the road, which means that cars won't have to be built with layers of heavy steel. Manufacturers can then use lighter more energy-efficient materials when constructing cars and other vehicles of transportation. A study facilitated by the Intelligent Transportation Society of America4 suggests that these type of autonomous vehicles could reduce oil consumption around 2-4%, which many researchers believe will be able to reduce greenhouse gas emissions over the next few decades. That may sound like a small number, but it could definitely impact the health of our overall environment if people start opting for self-driving cars.

Myth: Self-driving Cars Will Eliminate Accidents
Another common misconception many people have is that self-driving vehicles will eliminate accidents and the risk of human error all together. This is not necessarily true because there is still plenty of room for human error when it comes to programming and designing the systems that operate the vehicle. In the recent years, Google (GOOGL) has been running various tests on their own self-driving car which has been involved in its own share of accidents. According to a post published by Chris Urmson, the head of Google's autonomous vehicle division, one of their cars was recently involved in an accident at an intersection in Mountain View, CA5. This was Google's self-driving car's first accident which resulted in an injury, but there was only one minor case of whiplash that was reported after the accident. While some of the executives over at Google claim that this accident was caused by the human error of others, it also goes to show that the technology needs some improvements before these self-driving cars hit the road on a large scale.

Fact: Self-driving Cars Will Soon Be On Our Roadways
While many companies have developed prototype self-driving vehicles, Google has been working on perfecting the technology since 2009 and has since tested their cars on over a million U.S. streets and highways6. Google isn't necessarily planning to manufacturer their own self-driving vehicles but rather provide the technology to car and truck producers. Other companies have also began developing their own prototypes and some of them even promise to soon start producing them for consumers to purchase. CES 2015 featured a display of various other self-driving models that in the works such as Mercedes-Benz's four-door “F 015”7 and Audi's “A 7”8. All of these recent developments and reveals indicate that self-driving cars could very well make their way onto car and truck sales lots sometime in the next few years.


While there is plenty of speculation and rumors associated with the the self-driving car industry, you now hopefully have a better idea of what's true and what's completely untrue. So, what's the verdict? Will you be heading to the car lot to purchase yourself a self-driving vehicle if they become available in the near future?


1. “'Phantom Auto' Will Tour City.”The Milwaukee Sentinel 8 Dec. 1926: Page 4. Print. Web. 10 Sept. 2015.

2. Autonomous Land Vehicle Project at CMU. Kanade, Takeo, Thorpe, Chuck, Whittaker, William, Carnegie Mellon University, 1986. Web. 10 Sept. 2015. https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=325197

3. "Prof. Schmidhuber's Highlights of Robot Car History." Schmidhuber, Jürgen. Web. 10 Sept. 2015. https://people.idsia.ch/~juergen/robotcars.html
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4. Shaw, Anthony, Intelligent Transportation Society of America (ITS America). “Accelerating Sustainability: Demonstrating the Benefits of Transportation Technology.” Digital Energy and Sustainability Solutions Campaign (DESSC), August 2014. Web. 10 Sept. 2015. https://digitalenergysolutions.org/dotAsset/933052fc-0c81-43cf-a061-6f76a44459d6.pdf
5. Urmson, Chris. “The View From the Front Seat of the Google Self-Driving Car, Chapter 2.” Medium. Online magazine. 16 Jul. 2015. Web. 10 Sept. 2015. https://medium.com/@chris_urmson/the-view-from-the-front-seat-of-the-google-self-driving-car-chapter-2-8d5e2990101b

6. “Google Self-Driving Car Project: Where We've Been.” Google. Google. Web. 10 Sept. 2015. https://www.google.com/selfdrivingcar/where/

7. Undercoffler, David. “CES 2015: Mercedes-Benz Shows Off Self-Driving Car of the Future.” Los Angeles Times. Tribune Publishing, 5 Jan. 2015. Web. 10 Sept. 2015. https://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-ces-2015-mercedes-autonomous-20150105-story.html

8. Mamiit, Aaron. “CES 2015: How Did Audi's Self-driving Car Travel 550 Miles From San Francisco to Las Vegas?” TechTimes. Tech Times LLC, 8 Jan. 2015. Web. 10 Sept. 2015. https://www.techtimes.com/articles/25327/20150108/ces-2015-how-did-audis-self-driving-car-travel-550-miles-from-san-francisco-to-las-vegas.htm